by Roxie Ray
I could do it. I wanted to do it. And I knew she wouldn't do a thing to stop me.
But I had a duty. To Dhimurs. To Akzun. To all of Valkred. I couldn't let myself be caught up in some love affair with my assigned contact – it would put the mission in danger, might keep me from carrying out my job effectively. How could I, if I was too worried about maintaining her safety to focus on what was important? How could I drop my guard in such a savage and merciless place, even for a moment, without expecting some hidden enemy to stick a knife in me the moment my back was turned?
No.
I had to stay strong.
Besides, I still had no way of knowing for sure if it was my own mating urge I was feeling, or Hakkas'. What if I acted on it, only to find out I was wrong when Hakkas' genetic materials were removed from my body? I'd have risked so much for nothing, for a quirk of borrowed neural pathways and stolen impulses.
The alarm for work shifts honked, and the sound was loud and sudden enough to break the spell I was under. I released her hand, letting it drop abruptly.
“My personal feelings are irrelevant,” I said firmly. “I have my assignment, and I must carry it out. Now go to your shift, and try to collect more information we can use from today's batch of dead prisoners. I will see what I can determine from the birth dates you've given me.”
Paige appeared hurt, disappointed – but she kept her tone even as she stepped away from me. “All right, Surge. I will.”
“And from now on,” I added, “you should refer to me as Hakkas, even when we're alone. To avoid any confusion. If you were to use the wrong name in front of one of the others, even once...”
“Yeah, okay, I understand. Sorry.”
She walked out of the cell and toward the unit seven exit. Part of me expected – no, hoped – that she would glance backward at me... that I could look into her eyes one last time, to make sure that I hadn't hurt her feelings enough to lose her cooperation.
Or perhaps I just wanted to see her lovely face one more time before she left.
But either way, she kept her shoulders squared and her stride steady, and she didn't look back once.
8
Paige
I started off my shift in the morgue room again, trying to examine the bodies as quickly as possible this time. I kept feeling clammy shivers of sheer dread creeping up my back and peering over my shoulder, expecting to see Karaak advancing on me like an angry demon.
But I was only interrupted once... by Lozar, who had staggered into the wrong room in a post-rax stupor looking for something to puke in. He settled for the corner then wiped his mouth, looked at me as though he'd never seen me before, and stumbled out again.
Great. I grimaced, turning my attention back to the corpses. Another mess for me to clean up today. Just what I needed.
There were nine dead prisoners today, seven of whom had been horribly charred by the fires from the damaged fuel cells. But the two who had been spared from the flames – a human and a Drekkir – had sustained massive trauma to crucial arteries, which would have bled them out almost immediately. I dutifully recorded their dates of birth, signed off on the disposal of the remains, and went about my daily clinical tasks.
Which, unfortunately, started with sanitizing every surface, including the corner where Lozar had emptied the contents of his drug-sick stomach.
The rest of my shift unfolded much like it did every other day: Patching up injuries sustained in the machine shop, stitching up wounds from fistfights and shivs, dispensing scheduled medications (to the few inmates who could afford to bribe Lozar enough to keep them in stock), making adjustments to the Glitches' cybernetic implants when they weren't properly integrating with the organic parts they were grafted to... and toward the end of the day, bandaging the handful of terraformers who had miraculously managed to survive their pods' accidents with minimal damage.
I knew I'd be seeing the ones who hadn't first thing tomorrow, and the thought made me vaguely nauseous.
A couple of the patients were surly toward me – usually because they were in pain and didn't want to show it, or just because they had their “tough guy” reputations to maintain. But most of them were grateful to me, and a lot of them even told me that they owed me for taking such good care of them. They knew that the care I gave them was far better than that they'd have received from Lozar or most other prison doctors, and they appreciated it.
It was good to know I could still make a positive difference in the lives of these convicts, and I tried to banish my fears about helping Surge by clinging to that.
Still, I couldn't stop thinking about our last exchange. I wanted so badly to learn more about him... I told myself that it was just because I needed to decide once and for all whether I could afford to trust him, but deep down, I knew it was more than that. He was an irresistible puzzle to me, one I was determined to solve. I wanted to understand what was going on behind those enigmatic green eyes.
I wanted to unlock the mysteries of his heart – to see if there was room for me there, if I could truly allow myself to succumb to my strange desires and get closer to him.
And I'd gotten close, goddamn it. I could feel it.
So why the hell had he pushed me away so suddenly that morning? Why had he shut himself off to me so abruptly? Was this some spy tactic... seducing me, stringing me along, keeping me wanting more until he'd gotten what he needed from me?
Or was it something more basic than that? Was he simply afraid to be vulnerable enough to connect with anyone on that level? Was he even capable of vulnerability?
The frustration of not knowing was crumpling me up inside. How could I fully commit to taking such huge risks when I barely knew the person who was asking them of me?
But the harder I wished for answers, the more they seemed to elude me.
Once my shift was over and I returned to unit seven, Umel reached out and seized my arm the moment I stepped onto the cell block, as though he'd been waiting next to the door the whole time.
“I'm hurting, baby,” he hissed in my ear urgently. “Hurting real bad. What have you got for me, huh? What did you bring? Blood? Pills? Fucking plasma, what? Give it here! Now!”
My stomach dropped into my prison-issue boots like a stone sinking to the bottom of a pond. I'd been so focused on collecting information for Surge – and trying to figure out whether I could trust him – that I'd completely forgotten to ransack the medicine cabinets for contraband to deliver to Umel.
It was a grievous error. One I'd never dared to make before.
“I, um, didn't bring anything,” I stammered. “I forgot.”
Umel gnashed his fangs, his face contorting in agony. “You forgot? Oh, you rotten, empty-headed bitch! How the hell could you 'forget,' huh? Do you know what it's like to have to limp around on these thrice-damned metal legs? I can't even sleep through the pain anymore! You'd better find a way to get your pink little Earthling ass back to the clinic and grab something for me, fast, before I open your throat with my teeth and drink every drop of blood you've got!”
“She'll do no such thing.” Surge stepped up behind Umel, clamping down on his shoulder with a firm hand and snarling in his ear. “In fact, from now on, she won't be bringing any contraband back from her infirmary shifts, for you or anyone else.”
“Oh?” Umel twisted around, slapping Surge's hand off him and getting right in his face. “Why's that?”
“Because I don't want her taking unnecessary risks,” Surge snapped. “I have bigger plans for her. Ones that involve making sure she doesn't get assigned terraforming duty or sent to the seg cells just to bring a handful of pills to a sniveling addict like you.”
“Is that right?” Umel jabbed his bony finger into Surge's chest. “And what plans might those be, huh?”
“None of your fucking business,” Surge said dangerously. “I'm the boss around here now, not you. Which means I don't owe you any explanations. You'll do as you're told, period.”
“Yeah?” Umel scratched at his arms
impatiently. From the deep gouges that were already there, I could tell he'd been clawing nervously at himself for hours, maybe even days. “Fine. Then let me get another couple hits of rax, at least. I'll go back to my cell and smoke up, and you two can get back to all this big-picture thinking and scheming you've got going on, how's that?”
Surge shook his head implacably. “No. You've gotten your dose already. You've had all the rax you're going to get this week. Next week, too, if you keep making a pest of yourself.”
“But it didn't even do anything for me!” Umel whined. “I barely got a buzz off it! That ain't fair!”
“Its effects were limited because you've been inhaling so much of it before now. The tolerance you've built up from overuse is not my problem. You'll have to make do with your fair share of the stuff from now on, just like the rest of the Sives.”
Umel eyed him for a few seconds, and then spat on the floor contemptuously.
“No more pills, no more rax, not even a vial or two of shitty fake plasma to ease my suffering? You're just determined to fuck me over completely, is that it?” He shot a glance at me, and his lips pulled back in a sickly smile, revealing his dark, bloody, receding gums. “Then maybe I'll use something else to take the edge off. Like Paige here, for example.”
“If you want female companionship so badly, choose another inmate to satisfy your urges,” Surge growled dangerously. “Paige is mine.”
I had to admit, there was something about hearing those words come out of Surge's mouth that sent goosebumps up my arms. I knew it was all part of the act, but in that moment, I found myself wishing that it wasn't.
“Now, see, that ain't fair, Hakkas.” Umel ran his tongue over his fangs, as though testing their sharpness. “A good leader ain't greedy – he knows when to share with the rest of the gang. And let's face it, all that time I was the boss and I kept my hands to myself, acted like a perfect fucking gentleman? Well, the way I see it, I deserve a little taste now in return for all that restraint. So take a walk, let me enjoy some quality time with her – maybe a couple gulps of blood, just to kill the pain – and I won't give you no more trouble. Deal?”
My entire body was tight and trembling, and I could hear my heartbeat thumping in my ears. I'd seen Surge make short work of the Sives who'd attacked him when he first arrived – he was clearly an excellent fighter, and I had no doubt he'd do whatever he could to protect me.
But I'd seen Umel in action before, too. Plenty of times. His prosthetic legs may have been slow and clunky, but he frequently used them to hide weapons – and his upper body still had lethal strength and speed. More than that, whenever he was provoked while craving rax, he fought with insane abandon. He lashed out with clawing blows that were quick, jerky, unpredictable, as though someone had tossed a lit firecracker into a bag full of alley cats.
And I'd never seen him with cravings as sharp as these before.
“You will not touch her,” Surge told him firmly. “If you try, I will tear those ugly cyborg legs off your body with my bare hands, and you can spend the rest of your prison sentence dragging yourself around on your stumps. Do not doubt me.”
“Oh, yeah?” I saw Umel's right hand fidget near the back of his prosthetic leg, sliding a thin shaft of sharp metal out of it. “How about I saw your wings off and beat you to death with them instead, you strutting, preening idiot?”
“Look out!” I yelled. “He's got a shiv!”
But Surge was already in motion, grabbing Umel's right hand as it swung the gleaming metal spike toward his face – then driving his left knee up into Umel's stomach savagely. Umel wheezed but recovered quickly, yanking his hand free from Surge's grip and swinging the weapon again. Surge darted and weaved, staying just out of range, his hands raised in a defensive posture.
Predictably, other convicts began to form a circle around the two, watching the fight. Their daily dose of excitement, I supposed, in a prison that – unlike the ones on Earth – had no TV or library for them to amuse themselves.
Umel clanked forward on his heavy bionic feet, stabbing at Surge... who ducked under the strike easily, using the edge of his hand to chop Umel's wrist. The shiv clattered to the floor, but Umel's other hand delivered a vicious punch with the knuckles of his index and middle fingers, connecting directly with the bridge of Surge's nose and snapping it.
The impact sent Surge reeling backward for a split second, and Umel took full advantage of it, pressing his assault with a second blow to Surge's face. Surge went down on his back – and before he could rise again, Umel's huge cyborg foot settled in the middle of his chest, pinning him to the floor.
Surge whined and groaned as Umel bent his knee, applying more pressure with a nasty smile, hard enough that Surge was surely having trouble breathing. Blood from his nose was gushing down into his throat, and his breaths sounded thick and wet.
I wanted to rush in, to help him, but I didn't dare. What might Umel – or the other Sives – do to me then?
I looked around, trying to find the jailers on duty. Korkos and his Valkredian buddy Azkor were watching the fracas... but from their expressions and body language, it was clear they had no intention of stepping in. I shouldn't have been surprised. They were about as bored and eager for entertainment as the inmates were.
Or maybe the corrupt assholes were just waiting to see who would win so they wouldn't pick the wrong side and lose out on all those bribes they loved collecting so much.
“I'm going to crush the fucking life out of you, Hakkas, you arrogant piece of shit,” Umel laughed. “What do you have to say to that, huh?”
Surge's lips moved soundlessly, more blood trickling from the edges of his mouth.
“Eh? What's that?” Umel smirked and cupped a hand over one ear, leaning down closer.
Surge's leg shot up between Umel's knees like a piston, his boot smashing directly into Umel's crotch. A high, tremulous whistling sound emanated from deep in Umel's throat and he crumpled to the ground, his bionic legs collapsing under him. His eyes bulged and rolled comically, his pale face turning several shades of green.
The other convicts exploded with laughter, curses, and exclamations of shock at the brutality of the strike. I noticed that a few of them even cupped their own genitals with their hands, wincing in sympathy.
Surge pulled himself to his feet, stalking over to Umel and spitting a large gout of blood directly in his face. “I said they should have given you a set of metal balls to match your legs, scumbag. Now, I seem to remember making you a promise a few minutes ago... and in here, as I understand it, a man's word is his bond.”
Surge bent down, hooking his long fingers into the spaces between the hydraulic muscles of Umel's right leg. Umel's bloodshot eyes widened in terror. “No! Don't! Please...!”
Surge heaved backward with all of his weight... and the prosthetic tore off with a hideous grinding sound, releasing a torrent of blood, sparks, and foul-smelling machine oil. Umel screeched like a scalded cat, trying to use his hands and elbows to slide backward and away from Surge.
But he wasn't fast enough. Surge caught up with him easily, grabbed the other leg, and ripped it loose.
“All right, all right, that's enough,” Korkos said, shouldering his way through the crowd with Azkor at his side. “You've made your point, Hakkas. Now we'd better get Umel to the infirmary, and get a couple inmates from the sanitation crew to mop this up.”
Korkos and Azkor put their hands under Umel's arms and wings, lifting him off the ground and carrying him toward the exit.
“No, wait,” he bellowed, bubbles of spit forming on his lips. “Paige! You've gotta bring Paige. She's gotta fix me up!”
“Sorry, Umel,” I sneered, “but I'm off duty. I'm sure Healer Lozar will be happy to help you. If his hands aren't shaking too badly, of course.”
There was more laughter from the onlookers, and several of them applauded, jeering at Umel as he was hauled off. I looked around, surprised. Clearly, I was more popular in Karcerikus than I'd p
reviously realized... or at least, more popular in unit seven.
Regardless, I currently had something more important to attend to.
9
Paige
“Try to hold still.” I sat on my bunk next to Surge, carefully placing my fingers on both sides of his crooked nose. “This is going to hurt a lot.”
“I have long since grown accustomed to physical discomfort,” he replied evenly. “Proceed.”
I took a deep breath and pressed my fingers against his fractured cartilage quickly, snapping it back into place. He let out a sharp grunt, and then fell silent again as I staunched the blood flowing from his nostrils using a torn strip of bedsheet.
“The bleeding should stop soon,” I told him, putting his hands over the sheet to hold it in place. I reached over to the slit in the side of my thin mattress, rummaging around inside for the small tube of healing gel I kept there in case of emergencies.
Once I found it, I squeezed a tiny dab onto a rolled-up piece of the sheet, gently coaxing it up his nose. He twitched once, as a reflex, before stilling again. “Meanwhile, this stuff should help speed things along.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “For this, and also for warning me that he was armed.”
“Yeah, well, don't thank me too much,” I murmured. “I almost called out your real name by accident. Then we really would have been in trouble.”
“But you didn't. You kept your head. Most people who found themselves in a similar situation would not have. You are every bit as sleek, cunning, and formidable as a Gavriian phase-panther when put to the test, Paige.”
“That's kind of you to say. I appreciate it.” I'd never heard of one of those creatures, but from his tone, it was clear he meant it as a compliment. I hesitated before adding, “There's something I've been wanting to ask you about.”
He regarded me quietly, waiting for me to continue.
His eyes were like green stars shining down from a dark and cloudless sky. Just looking into them made my pulse quicken into a rapid thump, like a rabbit beating its foot against the ground. I knew I had to ask my question, especially after the promises he'd made to get me to cooperate with him.
